Cooking Up Life's Soups

Making soup is simple, but simple doesn’t always mean fast. Some recipes have a few ingredients, while others take a huge amount of preparation.

The choice of the type of broth is going to dictate how much time you need to spend with raw ingredients, typically requiring a repeating pattern of washing, peeling, chopping and moving on to the next. For some budding chefs, that’s fine, but if you’re anything like me, I love the satisfaction of creating meals from scratch, but less so the time I spend actually getting on with the creation.

To be perfectly frank, it’s hard not to see it as time wasted on busy days, time that could otherwise be spent with the kids, out in the garden mowing the lawn, washing the car, or taking on one of the more regular treats of life and parenthood. As a green pilgrim, I like to be as sustainable as I can, without becoming obsessive about recycling every last possible bit of waste, or checking how a particular farmer grew their crops or raised their animals. While I do care, life’s way too short to care too much.

Time and resources are the two things I constantly feel are in short supply, so that’s where the appeal of a soup maker grabbed me. Yes, I know what the purists will say, it’s not like cooking on the hob in a big pot. Yes, I know what the eco warriors will say that buying non essential kit for the home isn’t in the slightest bit green. Sometimes though, you just need a solution.

Soups are healthy. Kids need healthy food. Buying a soup maker has made regular soup treats a thing in our home, and actually contrary to what I expected, everyone loves them too – even a fussy eight year old. In my book that’s a big win, as I really hate the battle of wills that’s inevitable when he doesn’t want to eat something and I go into ‘you’ll sit there til you’ve finished’ mode. Yes I know, I’m my worst enemy, you don’t need to tell me.

Soup makers don’t do everything for you of course – you still need to choose a recipe. You still need to to the washing and peeling of veg. You even need to do a bit of chopping too – but that’s where it gets taken off your hands. Most of these wonderful bits of kit take big lumps and chop them down further, so you just need to make it fit in really. Once done, add a bit of liquid, such as stock, put on the soup maker lid and start it doing its thing. It’s that simple.

Half an hour later I can come back to ready-to-eat food, although full disclosure, I do have to pour it into a bowl manually – if only Morphy Richards hand found a way for it to do that for me too and carry it to the table that would have been great. Maybe to shout the kids in from playing out too. More seriously though, it’s a huge time saver and means there’s much more motivation for me to know I can just do half the job myself and leave the rest to the gadget’s wizardry.

I’ve even found that I’m getting more adventurous too – both in terms of the types of recipes I’m undertaking and the range of ingredients too. A great place I’ve found for finding new ideas is the bbcgoodfood.com website, as it’s not only got a lot of variety, but also really good instructions too. Of course, the cooking bit is now irrelevant – I’ve got a soup maker to do the tough part for me!

The Green Pilgrimage is an international interfaith organization of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC). Through religious groups, NGOs and local government bodies, ARC is attempting to draw up strategies for creating ecologically sustainable towns, cities and natural areas across the globe. The organization says that many religions promote a “green” lifestyle. Therefore, they are working to spread environmental awareness among the pilgrims and others who visit their various pilgrimage sites.

A large portion of the funds collected for the Green Pilgrimage goes to support the upkeep of cultural heritage. Since the inception of the organization in 1998, it has been working to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of the indigenous Christian communities in Pakistan and the Himalayan regions. They also work to protect the natural resources of these areas and work to restore and rehabilitate the economic prosperity that once was endowed upon them. This includes the expansion of markets for local products, promoting organic farming and use of alternative energy and education on environmental issues and responsible tourism.

Many environmental organizations and businesses have lent their support to the effort to create sustainable pilgrimage sites. In addition, many individuals have also joined in the effort to make the green pilgrimage more sustainable. Those who visit these sites come to leave their carbon footprint smaller by reducing their use of electricity, fossil fuels and other harmful materials to purchase items and produce the items they are at home or in their communities.

One of the major goals of the Green Pilgrimage is the creation of a Sustainable Travel advisory council, which will provide oversight and technical assistance to the various agencies and institutions involved in the creation of sustainable travel. These include the World Heritage Foundation, UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Program, IFAO, sustainable tourism organizations and others. The aim is to create a system that will ensure that the green pilgrimage’s activities are sustainable both in terms of individual consumption and in terms of investment in infrastructure that create green projects and products. The idea is to create new forms of tourism that will allow the pilgrims to generate income while reducing their ecological impact upon the environment.

The sustainable development policies of a pilgrimage will involve the reduction of overall waste generation, the re-use of waste and the provision of eco-friendly means of transport. It is also hoped that the policies will encourage investment in green technologies and energy efficiency rather than speculative energy projects such as geothermal power, solar energy or wind power. By creating a more equitable distribution of tourism income, it is hoped that the income generated will be used to fund the development programs of religious and cultural institutions and other important institutions throughout the region.

For the last few years, groups from different religions, representing different nations have been working together to come up with sustainable projects that will benefit the local people and promote the greening of the globe. In this regard, they have come up with five high-quality and green routes that they believe can be used by religious pilgrims worldwide. These routes cover locations in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. The projects include low carbon hotels, green buildings, street cafés, rides for ecologists, trekking and other outdoor activities that have a positive environmental impact.